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Awkward Beginnings

They met at a house party; a typical scene for two students to meet. It was an evening themed around Super heroes and everyone had made an effort to come up with their own particular character.

Now the guy apparently possessed the powers of Lego … I’m not exactly sure what that entails; the ability to construct elaborately coloured buildings perhaps? Or perhaps the pieces of plastic just float around him like orbiting moons? Anyway, he was as he called himself; Lego Lad. He had painstakingly attached thousands of pieces of Lego to his polo top the night before and was impressed with his short-notice abilities. He had a fiery mane of hair and accompanied his t-shirt creation with a reliable pair of jeans; he envisaged a dangerously inebriated night with circus-like antics. Smart move.

The girl, however, was a less man made subject; she was Pantheretta. A step up from cat woman to be sure, but her name was really the only thing that differentiated her from all the other spandex-clad girls that fill the history of comics. She had felt self conscious as soon as she put on her costume. When she bought it she had a team of friends there to give her an ego boost and the confidence to purchase it. But, alone in her room and in front of THAT mirror she lost her nerve. So she had to quickly chuck on a crop top, one that had the face of a Panther on it, before she left for the party; where she would no longer be exposing her tiny boobs to scrutiny. Last minute panics sure do conjure up innovative ideas.

It was an unlikely pairing to be sure; complete opposites when considering their costume choice but nevertheless they made the perfect partnership; neither were sidekicks.

I’m not exactly sure who spoke to who first, or who preyed on who, or who’s eye caught who first, for it was a crowded room and I seemed to have missed that particular first glance. They did however seem to gravitate towards each other, as if by design, and ended up colliding into each other in one almighty THWACK!

‘Ouch!’ they had said in unison.

‘Bloody hell, how much room do you need?’

‘It’s not my fault I didn’t see you.’

‘Sure, because a man covered in Lego is really hard to notice.’

‘I was distracted … and those hurt me! Look I actually have circular dents in my arm.’

‘Your own fault.’

‘No it wasn’t!’

Eyes met and glared.

‘Fine, whatever, sorry I wasn’t looking where I was going ok?’ She sauntered off in the direction of the kitchen to find sustenance; by way of a stiff drink. So far this evening wasn’t going to plan.

He watched her storm off and noticed that his eyes were solely focused on her hips as they were swaying their way away from him. Bemused, he followed.

‘Hey wait a minute!’

‘What?’

‘Let me mix you a drink? I can make you a tasty jelly-baby.’

‘Is this your way of saying sorry?’

‘No. You said sorry, I’m here to
make you a drink, ok?’

‘Sure, fine, whatever … I do want one.’

She watched him dubiously as he mixed together a concoction of spirits and bright colours. He presented her with a cloudy green liquid, with a piece of Lego floating on top, accompanied with ecstatic arm gestures when he was done.

‘Ta da! Now tell me that doesn’t taste like sweets, go on.’

She tentatively took a sip and was instantly glad she hadn’t said no, it was as if he had stabbed a jelly-baby and she was lapping up their fruity sweet blood.

‘That is amazing!’

‘I know.’ He stated smugly.

‘You are now my official drink maker for this evening, although you can have this back, I don’t fancy choking on it.’ She tossed the yellow brick he had put in her glass in his general direction and continued to slurp. It landed on the floor and disappeared from sight.

‘You can’t throw.’

‘You are right … but I can catch and that’s more important.’ She crowed.

‘You know many people here?’

‘Yeah, you?’

‘Yeah … but how have we not met before?’

‘Don’t know. I’d certainly remember that mess of hair on your head if I had.’

He laughed and assumed his usual flirting position; cocked head and a leaning arm that renders him precariously close to his victims personal space. Her eyes flickered to the face which was now intimately close to hers and hid a smile behind her drink. Perhaps her original plan didn’t matter anymore?

‘What’s your name?’

‘Lego Lad.’

‘No your real name.’

‘Oh, you’ll have to earn that; a hero never reveals his identity unless it’s essential to his cause.’

‘Fine.’

‘You meant to be cat woman?’

‘No. I’m Pantheretta … sounded better than Panther women.’ She added when a mocking smile spread over his face. She felt inadequate all of a sudden and gulped down the remainder of her green jelly-baby blood juice.

‘Ah yes, I see your t-shirt now, I thought those two blobs were there to draw attention to your bosoms… now I see they are eyes!’

‘Well making men look at my boobs is my only mission in life, didn’t you know?’ How far from the truth that statement was he’d never know.

‘Well I approve. Want to dance?’ He gestured towards the living room where a crowd had formed and were boogying along to Katy Perry’s dulcet tones ‘I kissed a girl and I liked it …’

Finally the alcohol in their systems was encouraging the heroes to lose their inhibitions and dance amongst the sofas. A Transformer and a Dino girl were causing an obstruction in the middle of the makeshift dance floor due to their bulky figures but the fatalities were nothing more than a few bruised egos and a couple of disgruntled … errmm … ‘couples’.

He led her in and tentatively dodged tails and capes till they found a suitable spot on the sidelines. The conversation was on pause while they danced and sang loudly at each other. They would both be interrupted by friends who would excitedly tap them on the shoulder and scream ‘Finally, there you are!’, ‘Where have you been?’ and ‘Oh who is this?’ Conversations wouldn’t last long though music either drowned them out or they would be dragged away by other prospects. They would always wind up alone again and they didn’t realise how much they wanted it to be that way for a long time.

After a while she made drinking gestures and pulled him back to the kitchen to make her another special brew.

‘So why didn’t you go off with your friends?’ she asked while he whisked.

For a moment he was silent.

‘I guess I find you too interesting.’ He finally answered without looking at her, ‘You?’

‘I couldn’t very well leave my cocktail maker behind.’ She winked and nestled in closer to inspect his work; this time he was making something pink. ‘Looks tasty, what’s in it?’

‘Never you mind.’ He pulled off another one of his Lego pieces and plopped it into the bubbly mix. ‘Don’t choke.’

This time she drank it with the floating blue brick and her eyes widened as the broth tantalised her senses. ‘Actually, I find you pretty damn interesting too’ she said with a glazed and glossy expression.

And that cinched it they would be inseparable for the rest of the night. Nothing, no one, could keep them apart, even trips to the loo! Maybe it was his eccentric way of telling stories that made her stay and listen; or her appearance of confusion that drove him to continue talking on and on. Anyway both were intrigued and glued.

‘So what is your super power exactly?’ she queried whilst fiddling with the straw in her drink.

‘I can control anything Lego’ he stated, as if it was obvious.

‘So, say I drew their logo, you could then move it around and control it?’

‘Essentially… yes… I guess so.’

‘What made you think of this… power?’

I like Lego’ he grinned.

‘Fair enough. Have you got a back story all worked out? How you got this power? Was it an electrical storm like in Misfits? Or you were born with it like superman?’

‘When I was eleven I went to Hogwarts and perfected the art of wingardrium leviosa.’

She laughed, ‘No really, what’s your back story going to be?’

‘That not good enough for you?’

‘No, not really’ she teased.

‘What’s yours then hum?’ he encroached even further into her personal space and squared up to her as if they were on the verge of a shoot out. His jaw was confidently clenched.

‘I was a feral child and I grew up as a panther cub.’ She said without blinking. ‘Duh.’

‘That’s not very original.’

‘Nothing is nowadays.’

Their personal bubbles had merged and after a bout of tipsy giggles had subsided a moment suddenly struck them. A moment when speaking ceased and only one thing could possibly happen. Before they knew it they were in each other’s arms and their lips were locked together. All thoughts of the guy Pantheretta wanted to initially impress were gone, easily overshadowed and forgotten when in Lego Lads company.

The clock struck the enchanting time of three and forced the couple to resurface. They discovered the house to be relatively empty except for the few, like them, who were still invading each other’s tonsils and those who had drunken or smoked themselves into a coma. Stragglers were ambling around the house looking for personal effects and there they were, in the middle.

‘Time to take you home I think’ Lego Lad breathed.

‘Yeah…’

She led him to her accommodation and after a final frantic smooching session at her door and a tumble in her bed, they slept together in each other’s arms.

The next morning she woke to the giggles of her flat mates. Her head was dizzy and from what she could make out from their hysterical screeching was that photos from last night were up on Facebook. She left the boy in her bed and trudged her way to the kitchen. There were some close ups of her smiling with her friends but most of them were of her in background kissing Lego Lad.

‘You certainly forgot about that David boy in a hurry.’

‘Look at you two going at it!’

‘We couldn’t tear you away from him!’

She ignored their teases and set about making herself a cup of tea.

‘Chloe!’

‘What? Have you found another picture of me in a compromising position with Lego Lad? Super…’

‘No, Chloe, what is that on your arm? Is that a tattoo?’

‘No it’s a sticker!’ Said another one of her friends.

She looked down and saw a sticker on her arm that she hadn’t noticed the whole evening… it was a sticker with the Lego Logo on it.

When I was younger I adored all sorts of jellied sweets. All the luminescent capsules of tightly compacted sugar and those stringy laces packed with E numbers, but, as I grew older my fondness for sweets slowly diminished. My addiction for chocolate, however, is still swelling out of control. I have no idea where my sweet tooth has gone… maybe the dentist stole it? Man I hate dentists… but, yeah, I can’t stand sweets anymore. The colours are too vibrant and the sugar coating too tangy for me to handle… I don’t trust them… they are too artificial… not like chocolate… oh my beloved chocolate… Being little you don’t think about the health risks; you just gobble them up without a second thought. However, now that I am… ‘older’ I am incapable of putting them in my mouth, even holding them is beyond me. It’s a sign that my childhood has well and truly won its game of hide and seek…

WHERE ARE YOU HIDING, DAMMIT? COME BACK, I MISS YOU AND SO DO MY TEDDIES!

But not all Jellybeans are made of sugar, of course.

Of course?

Yes – of course… shut up!

Some are magic.

Some are mastered in the art of Karate, some need two packets of hair dye to change their hair colour and some sing along to Paramore when they are angry.

Well… only one actually.

I met a Jellybean at university. She was living in the same student accommodation as me… In fact she was right next door! I didn’t realise at the time that she was a jellybean of course, like she would’ve made it that easy… she had an excellent disguise. It wasn’t until I really got to know her that I began to see through the human facade and glimpsed the quirky secrets within.

Alcohol has a funny bonding effect. It doesn’t always work, I mean, it more than usually patches over awkward situations… but when it does it can form unbreakable bonds that stand through all sorts of arguments and fallouts. She was my night-out companion; the only one that willingly jumped straight in and chugged down spirits and wine with me without a second thought. Extraordinary how immediate our friendship was; strangers who are randomly thrown together have to adapt quickly and my, how quickly we did adapt. I’m not saying others didn’t dive in as well, no sir, I have one other that banded with us almost as soon as we had (but her story is for another time… when she is back from Asia… possibly… depends if she brings back presents… hum…) but there was an instant connection between myself and the Jellybean.

I was the one who saved her from her door being locked. On that fateful day when we all moved in, I was the one who stepped up and showed her up for not being able to unlock a door… what a lovely first impression that must have been… ahhhhh… sweet sweet nostalgia…

ANYWAY, I was her hero, and from then on, her drinking companion.

We’ve done it all. We rated boys bum’s together, we created our own language; which was just banging on our adjoining wall really, until one of us eventually gave in and went to the other’s room. One time we each drank a whole bottle of wine on a night out to the union; we were SO shit faced that only one of us actually got in (me), who then subsequently fell over (twice), puked a few times before she was finally chucked out of the union (this being in the first 10mins) and stumbled back home to find said Jellybean on some stairs sucking face with an American footballer.

Wow what a ramble… Fun Times indeed.

I never knew you could recover from fallouts until I met her (and said other who has abandoned us for Asia…) usually the world would end and you couldn’t piece the shattered friendship back together. But with her (and also – her… lord it’s hard not to include said abandoner because we are something of a threesome…) it could always be fixed, we could always find the missing puzzle piece and jam it back together; it was easy. During the fallout however… HELL, UTTER UTTER HELL… the world would collapse briefly and all hope would appear taunt-like and abusive.

Ever had that kind of fallout before?

One that hurts so badly that it actually signifies just how much they mean to you?

No?

Well it sucks. Literally, literally sucks balls. It’s like you’ve eaten a cracker and your throat is too dry to swallow, so much so that it’s like you are being struck when you breathe. That’s love, true love and it sucks when it’s broken.

BUT once mended, that argument is so effortlessly forgotten that it just transforms into an amusing anecdote which can be pulled out to tease, mock and reminisce whenever we like.

Much like a magnet my Jellybean attracts drama. Like wasps to a honey pot, flies to a piece of cake and ants to a picnic; it follows her and spoils her with its generosity. It lags behind, stalks her wherever she goes and only catches up with her when a semblance of normality seems, at last, in sight. I do not know how she copes. Her body’s stamina is astonishing. She soldiers on, never lets tragedy hold her back, with determination (and a little help from Pro Plus) she can withstand hours of work and any social plight. I have always admired her determination, even if at times it can be most inflexible and stubborn… humph… she never wavers from her opinions, she has the ability to trust in her own judgements; a trait I thoroughly wish I had…. but then, she studied Politics so it’s expected, in that kind of degree it’s mandatory to have strong opinions and a backbone to match.

She is the epitome of strength.

She is the modern day Amazon.

She is a force that even Mother Nature cannot withstand… a Jedi might though… but then Jedi’s can defeat anything, never cross a Jedi, they will own you.

She is… MY JELLYBEAN and I shall not eat her… because, like I said, I don’t like the taste of them and I much prefer them as friends anyway.

Bandicoots are quirky creatures. Look them up on Google and I doubt you’ll disagree. They are small, have goofy ears and don’t look anything like that PlayStation character Crash Bandicoot fox thing. I mean they are kinda cute, they may have a pitiful smudge of stripes on their back and a tail that looks like a… a… a penis, BUT, they have this little snout that wiggles. Wiggles!

It is a modest and unassuming creature, which often goes unnoticed when stood against the might of attention thrown at the larger and more appealing animals of this varied planet.

But one such bandicoot managed to catch my attention. Not in the conventional sense of how a girl usually meets a boy for it was more of an accidental deviation.

I was actually in pursuit of a lanky lobster boy named Lauro one drunken evening when our tryst first began. That particular night had gone well up until… I lost him. Yes bloomin’ well lost him.

I stupidly made the mistake of going to the bar alone and when I came back he was gone. Great. Just perfect I thought. I marched through crowds of drunken students hoping he wouldn’t be too hard to find, he was really tall, but to no avail. That is until I rejoined his friendship group and was greeted with a devastating sight. Whether it was fate that intervened that evening or whether I went temporarily blind I’ll never know…. but I saw ‘him’ pressed up against the wall sucking face with a girl who had much bigger bosoms than me. Well, at least, that’s what I thought. Anyway like I said I was devastated, I looked at his friends like a wounded puppy… which looking back must’ve confused them a lot because Lauro was in fact stuck upstairs conversing with some bouncers while all this was happening… opps. So there I was confused and hurt when suddenly this smile appeared.

Ash Bandicoot was one of his friends and I had met him a few times before. He had noticed I was upset and decided it was his duty to cheer me up. What can I say? Rejection is a hard and massive pill to swallow, so having this cutie take my hands and dance with me like an idiot was extremely flattering and it wasn’t long before I was sucking face with him instead.

Yay me.Well yay me until the real Lauro finally found me… on Ash’s lap… think I may have run up to him and kissed him as well which must’ve confused them both… uggg I was a lip whore… no other way to put it, I was greedy and took advantage of both of them, such yummy morsels…

So… YEAH, it’s not the most romantic of beginnings, but it sure beats all the soppy stories most couples come out with and I’m glad I mistook that rampant face sucking Lauro-look-a-like for him. Four years on and I still see the goof-ball who was swinging my arms around like a crazy person, encouraging me to laugh. You know that scene in Harry Potter when he dances with Hermione in that tent? Well BINGO that’s him in a nutshell.

Ash, is MY bandicoot, a creature who doesn’t mind being overshadowed by his taller and more laddish friends. He’s a beast that doesn’t need to put on a macho bravado to compete with the other boys; he is at ease with himself. This is why he doesn’t get embarrassed or hurt when they tease him for being soppy with me; for buying me presents, thinking about our future together or giving in to our arguments – because he knows what rewards he will reap. Pretending to be one of them certainly won’t get me into bed, no sir, even if it does boost his precious man points.

He is a geek end of. A geek who still loves Pokemon as much as I do (hence the nickname; Ash Ketchum, just fits so perfectly) and still enjoys watching Thunderbirds and Thomas the Tank Engine in the same way as I still watch Sailor Moon and My Little Pony (80’s style). He buys jumpers and tops with cartoon characters on them and has only recently developed a sense of fashion that I actually approve of. He is obsessed with Nando’s, Tennis, Golf, Football… (I’ll just say Sports), writing lists, cream teas (yay… like I hadn’t made that clear already), BBC’s Merlin, his Mac and IPhone, Geography and David Attenborough… well who isn’t? Such a sexy man.

However, he does have one massive flaw; his downfall being that he has a tendency to force this obsessive trait upon others. No I do not want to play that game for the hundredth time. No I do not want to watch that show anymore. We always go to Nando’s can’t we go somewhere else?! I am fed up of cooking that. No shoo! Stop following me everywhere and writing ballads about me all the time… its creepy. Luckily, these are just phases and he does eventually lose interest, it’s just pretty intense when he’s in the thick of this enthralled period 24/7 for however long it lasts. AND as his girlfriend I MUST be supportive 24/7 for however long it lasts… uggg… so tiring I tell you.

BUT!

Imagine, if you will, this sundry animal wearing an Aladdin outfit. Complete with the little hat, silk waistcoat and loose white harem pants and you might understand why I like him so much. He has a cupid bow mouth sandwiched between two dimples, eyes as dark as his fur and has one of those manly cleft chins I can’t seem to get enough of, ManI love prodding that cleft… and trying to shave the little hairs that grow out of it… weird I know, but I bet you’d do it to if you had one for your own! I could go on and on about this being, about his comical ears, his peculiar way of saying the words Museum, Music and Railway and of his annoyingly short attention span, but I won’t, because I’ve probably embarrassed him enough already.

I had planned on doing what people usually do when they create a blog; to say hi in an excited manor, to begin with a brief description as to why I had decided to start this blog and to apologise in advance if it descends into ramblings of nothing in particular, but, instead I am going to begin with a confession.

My Name is not Alexandra Neon. I am beginning my writing career in the most cowardly way possible – under a pseudonym. I believe my identity is rather precious and in a world where there are trolls who plunder the internet and where faceless people who steal identities run rampant I find it instinctive to protect my ‘self’.

So yes I am a cowardly writer, I am going to hide behind my alter ego and spout my opinions and musings without fear of reproach. I am not out to hurt or insult anyone just to give (hopefully) a comical viewpoint on things I do not understand. Personally I would love to have people help me understand the things I am ignorant of – I am afterall just an ordinary person with just as many misinformed ideas as the next. So if injury or insult is caused from my ramblings please let me know! Constructive criticism is always welcome!

So yes anyway, for now I am Alexandra Neon; a girl with a block fringe and a slightly bent nose who just wants to see how this writing malarky goes in the real world with an actual audience. With a tentative finger I shall now press the finish button.